


Awkward

by orphan_account



Series: Myc & Me: a correspondence [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Molly-centric, Slow Burn, canon compliant only up to a point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: AU where Molly Hooper is actually a deep undercover agent and has been working at the morgue to help Mycroft Holmes keep an eye on his recovering addict of a younger brother. During which she also sends her boss inappropriate texts.Molly: hey how many spy puns do u think I can make before ur bro calls me outMycroft: Agent, this line is for emergency purposes only.





	Awkward

_Me: lol i asked sherly out for coffee guess what he said?  
_ _Myc: For the umpteenth time, refer to the target as the Target, I insist.  
__Me: fine ok guess what the “””Target””” said??_

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Molly Hooper has been a specialist at the St. Bartholomew Hospital’s morgue for, on paper, nearly 400 days. In reality, she has only been here about 100 days.

 

And on the 100th day, she is treated to the sight of one Sherlock Holmes waltzing into the morgue like he owned it. She grins behind her hand and quickly ducks behind a microscope, checking him out while pretending to be busy pretending not to check him out, so that he will think she is very easy to read.

 

It works.

 

Sherlock Holmes waltzes in and out of the morgue with a riding crop, desecrates a dead body, and leaves none the wiser.

 

_Me: *hacker voice* I’m in._

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Molly Hooper was a sweet girl who was eager to please. She had a lovely mouth that smiled easily, and sparkling eyes that could just hypnotize you.

 

She had just one problem. The little girl was too quick, too clever. She always had a quip at the ready and saw through everyone she spoke to.

 

No one liked that very much, so she learned quickly not to do it. But she did’t understand why—she wasn’t judging, merely interested and invested and infatuated.

 

She later learns that this is her gift, to be able to fall in love quickly and easily, even if it’s only for a day. That she can find love in anything.

 

But to the five-year-old who had just tried to give her a classmate a kiss on the cheek only to have him scream bloody murder as he bolted across the playground just to get away from her. Well.

 

“BUT FREDDY, I LOVE YOU!!” she hollers after him in shock.

 

Alas, Freddy was bawling to Ms. Coates about cooties halfway across the schoolyard. He swiped an arm across his snotty face and then turned back to point a damning finger at the girl who infected him, Ms. Coates’s eyes following in the same direction.

 

In that moment, their eyes met, and something in Molly crumpled.

 

So, as tears streamed down Molly’s face, she vowed never to give her heart away to another boy.

 

But like all things that go against our nature, it was easier said than done.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Molly is 11, and easily the loveliest and least popular girl in school. She falls in love with Billy, who has green speckles in his hazel-brown eyes and plays the clarinet and shows her his comic book collection. She helps him learn and rehearse a Mendelssohn excerpt for his band audition after school.

 

A week later, Billy makes first chair.

 

“Molly, we can’t see each other anymore Mondays through Thursdays,” Billy says very seriously, snapping his clarinet case shut.

 

“Oh. Okay. What about Fridays?” Molly asks.

 

He thinks about it. “Not on Fridays either. That’s when the comic club meets,” Billy answers.

 

She opens her mouth to ask—

 

“No girls allowed.”

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Molly is 15 and as brilliant and beautiful as ever.

 

She’s eating her lunch in the usually-empty school auditorium and she sees there are auditions for the school play today.

 

Halfway through her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, Gustav gets on stage to read as Peter, with a stagehand filling in for Wendy’s lines.

 

“You mustn't touch me,” he reads, and he’s not half bad. “No one must ever touch me.”

 

“Why?” the stagehand reads back.

 

“I don’t know,” Gustav says, with such emotion that Molly’s sandwich is forgotten halfway to her mouth.

 

He gets the part and she helps him rehearse three times a week after schools, though not all of the sessions are particularly productive. On opening night, she sees him leave with Wendy.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Halfway through university, Molly realizes the problem is that she has been falling in love with boys, not men.

 

Molly is only half right.

 

She is 20 when she starts dating a Eli, who is something of a tech savant. They discuss AI and robotics and have the most enthralling conversations that last until 4 in the morning and then he kisses her hard in the middle of another debate about Asimov’s Laws because she just gave him the perfect solution to the problem he couldn’t crack and then he’s off to his desk. The two of them spend the next 8 hours with Eli coding and Molly debugging, and the resulting algorithm is a smashing success.

 

But when he sells his company for $60 million and leaves for Germany, he also leaves Molly to find out via broadcast news, and she can’t imagine what went wrong.

 

Molly is 24 when she starts dating a billionaire’s son, having had enough of brilliant and talented men. He takes her vacationing across Europe, and on one stop in Florence, she meets a sculptor who becomes entranced with her as his muse.

 

His works, though clay, look as if they were rendered from sea silk and ocean breeze, frozen in time. She’s captivated and can’t say no when he asks her to pose.

 

The billionaire leaves for Rome without her, and then the artist’s lover and patron comes home.

 

It’s a tough trip back to London.

 

A week later, Molly goes back to school and falls in love with neuroscience and behavioral psychology and rare tree frogs and extinct viruses.

 

She’s on her way to collecting her second PhD when a woman with really fantastic hair approaches her at breakfast.

 

Molly is sitting at her table—the cafe staff hold it for her every Saturday morning—indulging in her weekly people-watching, espresso-sipping pancake ritual.

 

The woman slides into the seat across from her, tosses her dark curls back over her shoulder, then offers her a government job.

 

“You’re an interesting woman, Molly Hooper,” she says, as Molly tries to swallow around the rather large forkful of pancake she’d just stuffed in her mouth.

 

“They say behind every great man there’s a great woman, but no one expects to look and find that behind a tenth of the most influential figures in Europe, there’s you standing, if not behind, just a few steps back. Brava,” she adds, air clapping. “Yet scarcely a soul even knows who you are.”

 

“And, let me guess, you’ve got a man you’d like me to...stand behind?” Molly hedges, setting down her fork.

 

“You’re an invisible woman, Molly Hooper,” the beautiful stranger says in lieu of an answer.

 

Molly frowns at this. She might have worked very hard to be...low-key, if not invisible, but she didn’t like it.

 

“Invisible is an asset in our line of work,” the woman elaborates.

 

They’re quiet for a moment, as the woman watches Molly watch her.

 

“To be clear, you’re trying to recruit me for an intelligence agency, correct?” Molly finally says.

 

The woman smiles and reaches into her purse for a small piece of paper.

 

“Call me Anthea,” she says, sliding the paper across the table and around a small puddle of syrup, to Molly.

 

“Just Anthea?”

 

“Just Anthea.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“I’m sure.”

 

Molly picks up the paper and stares.

 

“What is this, like, a zip code?” she asks hesitantly.

 

“That’s our offer,” Anthea replies, trying to be discrete. Molly’s gaping is not helping.

 

“Is it a phone number?” she asks, aghast.

 

“It’s your salary, should you choose to sign with us,” Anthea says a little more tightly than before.

 

“Like a super secret number? Is it a personal storage unit?” Molly asks, still not quite computing.

 

“This is how much you would be paid your first year, should you decide to become one of our agents, after you’ve gone through the training,” Anthea replies through gritted teeth, eyes darting around the cafe. In the event that they don’t have as much privacy as they thought they ensured for, she would at least have their faces.

 

Molly blinks at her.

 

“Wow,” she says intelligently. “Wow, okay. Okay yeah, you’re really being clear there with…”

 

She looks up. “Are you sure the government has this kind of money?”

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

After Anthea gets frustrated with her enough, she leaves Molly to finish her breakfast in peace. The cafe staff bring her a small complementary bowl of strawberries to assuage the interrupted ritual, and Molly decides breakfast isn’t ruined after all.

 

She calls Anthea later that day and learns the mandatory training includes some self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, and a certain level of proficiency with a firearm.

 

“So I’ll get a license to kill?” Molly jokes.

 

“At a certain clearance level, yes,” Anthea replies.

 

It suddenly makes the whole thing a lot more real.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

The first year in intelligence is, frankly, not very rewarding. There are briefings and trainings and examinations, and she starts to think that as much as she wants to be useful and of service to the world, perhaps she would not like very much to be doing it underground.

 

She wants to be loved and recognized for her sparkling personality!!

 

Even in academia the mixers and politics was more interesting than this. There were catfights and snarking and _table flipping_ all of the time at academic conferences! She expected more from a super secret agency! Where was the _drama_?

 

Above her clearance level, she is reminded. So she puts her nose to the grindstone and moves up to from trainee to analyst and then up again.

 

Then she meets Mycroft Holmes.

 

“Invisibility gets you into a lot of places,” Anthea tells her, opening a heavy oak door into the office of Mr. Holmes. Molly wonders whether shady government agencies also employ a team of television writing rejects to come up with their ominous one-liners.

 

Mycroft Holmes explains, almost as if he is bored, that she’s to be put in an undercover program where the aim is to place agents into very high places—Fortune 50 boardrooms, foreign embassies, and the like. Her background lends her to the position, as does her natural disposition.

 

“Your codename will be Adrasteia,” he tells her.

 

“Um, is that really necessary?” she asks.

 

He frowns.

 

“Yes.”

 

And all of a sudden there are lots of interesting cases! Lots!

 

Molly spends the next few years in boardrooms and at museum openings and galas, at screenings and state meetings. She becomes a nuclear physicist, a political strategist, a sought-after art curator, an oil baron’s girlfriend, a vice-chairman on the board of a rather large investment firm, and even an actress for a brief stint. They all have colorful and varied personal lives and she falls in love with each one. She makes tons of friends and keeps in touch with most of them under her various names. She even seduces a billionaire.

 

But she doesn't fall for a single one of her targets because--

 

Because,

 

Well.

 

She already knows right where the most fascinating, brilliant mind she has ever had the pleasure of encountering is.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Molly laughs when her colleagues share with her fact that their boss has the nickname The Iceman.

 

It makes her picture them, Liliputan-sized, dragging a life-sized Mycroft Holmes out to beach, where he would just dissolve away out into the sea.

 

Mycroft Holmes is not ice, he is much too deeply rooted to be water of any soet, frozen or not. He is a fortress. The embodiment of stonewalling. He is earth and rock and the deeply rooted trees that stood high overhead for centuries.

 

She could find a way to love that too.

 

So, and to her credit she does realize it’s technically inappropriate, she files away the information that he is completely unattached.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

“We should get coffee sometime,” Molly says, out of nowhere, after a briefing in Mycroft Holmes’s office. She is two month on the job, leaves for Berlin in two days.

 

“I think not,” he says. The rejection is swift.

 

Molly doesn’t let it bother her.

 

Another month in, and Molly starts to play a game where she tries to get a genuine, emotional story out of him. She starts with jokes, because humor is the most important facet of a human being’s personality. It is like your DNA.

 

Molly learns it is very hard to love Mycroft Holmes.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

But the invitations don’t stop after that. Molly asks him to dinners and movies and symphonies and art galleries. She even asks him to come to the amusement park with her. He doesn’t even bat an eye at the outlandishness.

 

It’s about a year in when Mycroft Holmes calls out her name as she’s leaving, and she turns her head so quickly she thinks she gets whiplash.

 

“Ms. Hooper,” he says haltingly.

 

“Ms. Hooper!” she repeats. “You’re using my name!”

 

“Well, yes, that is what it’s for, isn’t it?” he says wryly.

 

“What happened to ‘Adrasteia’?” she asks, curious, scrambling back to perch on the edge of the sofa.

 

“And when have you ever actually answered to your codename?” he sighs, not even looking up from the papers he’s signing. She wonders whose signature he’s forging today.

 

“And it only took you a whole year to catch on! Well done.” She’s very pleased.

 

He frowns.

 

“I suppose this ties into what I wanted to ask you, but…”

 

“But?”

 

“The invitations.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Haven’t you got better things to do with your time?”

 

He looks genuinely puzzled, and Molly counts it as three-quarters of a win, because this is still real emotion.

 

“I’d really rather get to know you more,” she answers honestly.

 

He stares at her for a good minute, and she lets him.

 

Then he clears his throat and dismisses her again.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

“I see you’ve got a new Anthea,” Molly says one year later, striding into his office. He’s also got new curtains.

 

He ignores the comment and motions for her to take a seat. He looks pale, distracted.

 

“Agent Hooper,” he starts. Ah, urgent matter then? State secrets in jeopardy?

 

“I asked you here because you’re one of the best. You are the best, in fact, of our undercover specialists,” Mycroft Holmes says, and Molly’s jaw drops.

 

Then she gasps, and it’s loud and audible.

 

“I’m getting that cross-stitched on a sweater,” she says, not bothering to hide her astonishment.

 

“What?”

 

“You said I was the best, no takebacks,” she cuts in quickly. He nearly rolls his eyes and she counts that as another point toward her.

 

“You’ve got bugs, right? I want this as my _ringtone_ ,” she says.

 

“This is a very important job,” he presses on.

 

Oh.

 

“Oh,” she gasps again.

 

“This is a _favor_ , isn’t it?” Molly asks. “You. You are asking me for a _favor._ ”

 

He’s quiet, and she’s totally right.

 

She’s bouncing on the balls of her feet as he pulls out a dossier and lays it out on his desk.

 

“I need you to tail Sherlock Holmes,” he says quietly.

 

It’s _personal._

 

She stares at him like she’s never seen him before. Objectively, for her career, this sounds like a terrible move.

 

“And the name I’m to use is Molly Hooper,” she says, not quite a question.

 

Mycroft nods. He’s taking more caution with his brother than his agent on this one then.

 

“The identity is cleared for undercover work,” he adds.

 

The mission is to pose as a lab tech nobody so she can keep tabs on Mycroft Holmes’s brilliant but troubled and aimless younger brother.

 

It’s a dead end job.

 

But.

 

It’s also the first time she’s seen a chink in Mycroft Holmes’s armor, so she latches on to it.

 

“One condition,” she says, and watches Mycroft Holmes brace himself.

 

“And that is?”

 

“I want your personal number,” she says triumphantly.

 

He gapes at her, and she gives him her best smile.

 

It’s a long moment.

 

“Oh you’re serious?” he finally says, a little weakly. He’s confused. It’s like Christmas.

 

“Yes.” She nods once. Then gives him another smile for good measure.

 

He watches her for another second, then rips a piece of paper off his memo pad and scrawls a string of digits on it before handing it to her.

 

She _beams._

 

“That will be all,” he adds.

 

She’s gives him a small mock salute, then looks back at the papers, and at him. But she doesn’t leave.

 

“You can stop smiling now,” he adds, just slightly, a tiny bit nervous. She doesn’t.

 

“Agent,” he says, making her title sound like a reprimand.

 

The smile doesn’t go away the rest of the day.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

_Me: hey boss_

_Myc: This line is for emergency purposes only._

_Me: do u want a pic of sherly eating chips_

_Myc is typing_

_Myc is typing_

_Myc is typing_

_Myc: Yes please._

_Me:_

Atch_65.JPEG

_Me: ur welcome!!!_

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

There is some rationale to her position as a specialist in the hospital morgue. It’s a fairly solitary role, for one. And it gives her access to medical records and equipment should the younger Holmes brother relapse.

 

Sherlock, she learns from his file, has recently taken Scotland Yard on as a client in his consulting detective business. And he seems to be a self-taught forensic analyst, as is Molly, now anyway.

 

Forensics, she learns, is nearly as interesting it is on TV sometimes, though generally much more repetitive. Also you can’t smell dead people on TV.

 

On her hundredth day, as planned, Sherlock Holmes introduces himself as a consulting detective and deduces her character’s backstory bluntly and almost immediately. She likes him on the spot.

 

After he leaves, she texts Mycroft Holmes straight away.

 

_Me: *hacker voice* I’m in._

 

She can just imagine Mycroft Holmes frowning at his phone display.

 

_Me: Are all your family members like this?_

 

_Me: socially awkward and highly intelligent, I mean_

 

_Me: also tall_

 

Molly rarely gets a response, but she suspects his favorite updates are the details like Sherlock’s reactions to certain things and people. There’s a lot he can get from CCTV, but Molly adds _color._

 

She also adds lots of inane details about his brother’s general state of being because she suspects that Mycroft Holmes finds them equal parts annoying and precious, as he does his younger brother overall.

 

_Me: He’s wearing a purple shirt today_

 

_Myc: Really, you don’t need to update me on every little thing._

 

_Me: The one with the mother-of-pearl buttons._

 

_Myc: You know that was not the aim of the mission. Right?_

 

_Me: You had me tell you when he got a haircut last!!! Don’t ‘oh you know that’s not the aim’ mE_

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

She’s called in for a briefing, urgent, and she wonders what could be so big that she would need to come in person.

 

Mycroft sits her down in front of a surveillance screen showing five different angles of a stark room where a single madman sits, carving the word SHERLOCK into every surface he can manage.

 

“This is Jim Moriarty,” he explains, “and he has some sort of sick obsession with my brother.”

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

The next time she sees Jim Moriarty, he’s Jim-from-IT, and he has no idea who she is.

 

An odd virus has overtaken her work computer, and she supposes the natural thing to do would be to check with IT, so she checks with IT.

 

Jim-from-IT gives her smiles and lines awkward enough to match Molly-from-the-morgue’s. So a few days later, she logs into her email with the wrong password a couple of times until she gets locked out, and calls up IT again.

 

He fixes it, and two days later she gets the blue screen of death. It’s clear how he wants this to play out, Molly thinks, picking up the phone.

 

“Would you like to get coffee?” he asks.

 

She’s tempted to reply with cream and two sugars, and that she’ll be downstairs, because it’s not a bad line. Instead she accepts and tucks her hair back behind her ear and they both grin awkwardly and look at each other like kittens.

 

_Molly: look i know it wasnt part of the plan but i started banginf moriarty and he wants to meet your bro. Go ahead? Or abort?_

_Molly: dating, i meant dating not banging_

_Molly: darn autocorrect_!

 

That startles a phone call after Mycroft, but she assures him it’s all under control, and really, it is.

 

Now that he’s aware Jim is trying to catch Sherlock’s attention, he’s creating who knows how many contingency plans for every scenario.

 

Molly, meanwhile, is having some of the best makeout sessions she’s had since high school.

 

Jim, Moriarty, whatever, is really actually a fantastic kisser.

 

Jim-from-IT, however, is also very obviously homosexual.

 

After a couple of dates, they go back to Molly’s and one of them, she can’t remember, initiates more snogging on the couch with a movie on.

 

They end up in the bedroom, and after many awkward minutes, they’re panting on the bed, Jim above Molly, Jim spent and Molly not quite.

 

“Jim,” she asks kindly, “you’e never been with a woman, have you?”

 

He blanches and gives her a really fantastic expression and she has to applaud him for staying in character throughout it all, she really has to. She might even love him a little bit, for that, even if she is also, right now, really very frustrated by him, actually.

 

He visits her in the morgue while Sherlock’s around the next time.

 

 _Molly: lol sherls says hes gay it’s like the first thing he noticed about the guy. Can totes_ _confirm_

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Molly gets invited to a Christmas party at 221B Baker Street and she makes a group text event out of it.

 

_Me: ok so ur bro is like super oblivious_

 

_Me: world championship levels_

 

_Me: so how outrageous of an outfit do you think I could pull off in this character before he says something_

 

ATCH__88.JPG

 

_Anthea: do it!!!_

 

_Me: Anthea likes it. That’s like approval from the boss by proxy right_

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

Later that night, Molly has to go back to work, though she supposes she’s really working all of the time.

 

When Sherlock comes in to identify Irene Adler’s body, however, she is shocked on two fronts.

 

_Me: boss is ur bro actually NOT a virgin_

 

_Me: seriously answer me I have money riding on this v important fact!!_

 

_Myc: I don’t condone betting amongst coworkers._

 

_Me: OMG_

 

She sends a few, more serious texts after catching up with Sherlock.

 

_Me: He’s got Adler’s phone._

 

_Me: and he’s actually Very worked up about this._

 

_Me: I mean it- she means a lot to him._

 

_Me: I know you’ll want to talk to him about the phone, its contents, etc. Boss I’d advise you to be sensitive about it if you must bring it up with him._

 

_Me: I mean it_

 

_Myc: So you’ve said, twice. You are suddenly very invested in this relationship._

 

_Me: Isn’t that the whole reason I’m here? To help you repair your relationship with your brother?_

 

The message gets read, but there is no reply forthcoming.

 

For the next three days, she only texts inane details about what Sherlock is wearing or eating, and funny things he says to John.

 

Three days after Christmas, she gets a thank you from Mycroft. Or as good as one.

 

_Myc: Your work has been invaluable._

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

_Molly: so, tell me_

 

_Molly: when he tells me he’s gonna fake his death_

 

_Molly: how surprised should I look?_

 

ATCH_115.JPG

 

ATCH_116.JPG

 

_Me: too much?_

 

With Moriarty winding things up to a grand finale, Molly knows both brothers are tense. And neither seems to be responding well to distracting humor.

 

_Me: he’s very sad about it all_

 

_Me: I know you both have been planning it all for months, but it’s clearly eating away at him._

 

_Me: He needs someone to talk to_

 

_Myc: I know._

 

_Myc: It can’t be me._

 

_Myc: We’re not at that stage yet…_

 

_Me: You’re plotting to help him fake his death and you’re “not at the stage” to talk about feelings???_

 

_Myc: Yes, that is what I said._

 

_Myc: Please be that person for him in my stead._

 

She types out _Mycroft i stg_ then deletes it.

 

_Me: Of course i will_

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

And like that, it’s over.

 

Sherlock will be overseas for the next two years, so there’s no need for Molly-from-the-morgue anymore.

 

She meets up with Mycroft Holmes in person for her debrief, and it feels like an awfully long time has gone by since she was comfortably ribbing him in his office.

 

Adding to that weirdness is the fact that they’re meeting at an empty park bench. She really should have looked harder for the TV writers in the basements.

 

Mycroft Holmes is very, very quiet when she approaches, and at first she thinks it’s a side-effect of the grief he’s had to put on in the aftermath of Sherlock’s supposed death.

 

Then she sees it’s not that at all.

 

She gapes at him, and part of her is saying _I should’ve known_ and another part of her is stomping her foot down, screaming _No._

 

“You’re _retiring_ me?” she asks. She wants to hear it.

 

He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

 

“You do have a choice,” Mycroft Holmes eventually says.

 

And Molly is _livid._

 

This is worse than Pasquale and Keegan and Eli and _Freddy._ This is worse because she really, _really_ thought she mattered this time. It was  _real_ this time.

 

But it’s the

 

same

 

damn

 

thing.

 

“You don’t deserve to only have fake relationships,” he continues, completely oblivious. “You should be able to choose something real.”

 

He stands.

 

“I’m not sure I saw, _really saw_ just how, how much love for life you contain for just one person. And I realize now that it wouldn’t be fair of me to deprive you of that, not when you’ve helped me restore it, with my dear brother,” he says softly almost to himself.

 

“And, what,” Molly asks, quiet, dangerous. “Now we’re done with that, goodbye?”

 

He turns to look at for the first time now, and Molly grabs his face—it’s difficult, actually, because he’s so much taller—and kisses him hard.

 

Mycroft is completely gobsmacked, and in a moment is about to be doubly so.

 

Molly pulls back, then pulls her arm back, and backhands him, hard.

 

Birds scramble to take flight at the sound of the impact, which rings out in the empty park like a gunshot.

 

Man, those hand-to-hand sessions paid off.

 

Mycroft raises his hand to his cheek in slow motion, and says absolutely nothing as Molly stomps off.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

A few hours later they meet at a cafe.

 

Molly’s had time to think, having spent the last hours in the tube, getting jostled around by the crowd as she rode up and down a handful of random lines.

 

She realizes he didn’t mean what she initially thought he meant by it. And that he never intended to be like any of the less brilliant and far more charming men she’s had her fill of.

 

She supposes she ought to make him give a proper explanation first. And then, if anything, he would at least be willing to meet her list of demands. She could ask for a new identity, a nice savings account, property. She’d get more out of this than any of her other relationships at least.

 

But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted _Mycroft Holmes_ to admit that he had a heart and that _she helped realize it for him._  Before her, he merely had a shell of a heart and wasn’t even quite sure where it went.

 

The train she’s on stops and her phone rings. She picks it up.

 

“Hello? Yes, well, just because it’s a public setting doesn’t mean I won’t cause a scene,” she says. The commuters around her try to pretend they’re not listening.

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

“I mean, I do apologize for the kiss-slapping bit because it was very awkward, but if you’ll believe it I've never actually gotten to do that,” Molly greets him at the restaurant, as she lets the waiter take her coat and pull out her chair. The restaurant is upscale and discreet, and Molly has dined here with Anthea once.

 

“Not even in Sweden as the mistress?” he asks. There’s a horrible bruise forming on his left cheek. Ouch. She got him good.

 

“No!” she replies, equally civil. “I thought I would get to, but it was more ‘screaming while security dragged me away’ and it did cause a splendid scene but it was not the same at all.”

 

“Well I’m glad I could help you cross that off the list then,” he says rather seriously.

 

“You know that’s not just it,” Molly responds, leveling him a look.

 

He doesn’t meet her eyes.

 

“I know,” he starts.

 

Then,

 

“I apologize,” he says.

 

Molly sits back in shock.

 

“You apologize? I-”

 

“Have to make it your ringtone, yes, I’ll make sure to record it for you,” he says with a half smile.

 

Against all instinct, Molly tells herself now is _not_ the time to smile back. They’re going to have a Very Serious Talk.

 

“Do you really want this to be goodbye, then?” she asks plainly.

 

He frowns. Hesitates.

 

“It is really your choice. If you don’t want to leave the service I certainly won’t force you to either.”

 

Molly places both hands flat on the table.

 

“Mycroft Holmes,” she says.

 

“Yes?”

 

“What do you want?” she asks slowly, clearly.

 

He gapes at her, then, not finding any words, raises a hand to his cheek without realizing, then winces and pulls it away.

 

He closes his mouth and looks at her expectantly.

 

“Oh no,” she says. “I’m not helping you with the answer this time. You’re on your own Mycroft Holmes.”

 

She crosses her arms for good measure.

 

“What could you possibly want with me?” he says, a little helplessly. “I’m no good with…”

 

“Women?” she hedges.

 

“ _People_ ,” he replies.

 

She waits, and is eventually rewarded with a long sigh, and he even kind of almost messes up his hair, he’s at such a loss.

 

“Molly Hooper,” he starts, testing out the words as he goes. She sits up a little straighter, tries to make an encouraging motion with her head.

 

“I…”

 

She nods, a sort of ‘keep going, you’re getting there’ gesture.

 

“You have become an instrumental fixture in my life,” he finally says. Then as if by sudden inspiration, he continues like that admission has broken the dam. “You were my heart when I had none, and despite it all you helped me find mine.”

 

“I can’t,” he clears his throat. “I don’t want to go back to being the person I was without you,”

 

Molly _beams._

 

☺ ☹ ☺ ☹

 

_Me: so would you say I’m a good undercover agent or a good undercover agent_

_Myc: I am a very busy man._

_Me: but I’m like a good undercover agent right_

_Myc: Sherlock has known you for how many years? And still doesn’t suspect a thing. So, yes, I’d say so._

_Me: ill show you what else I’m good at under the covers_

_Me: lol_

_This number has been disconnected and is no longer in service. Your message did not send._

_Me: lol cmon that was funny_

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write a mollcroft agent au text story and as usual got derailed by backstory


End file.
